Moving object detection systems are installed in motor vehicles in order to improve their driving safety. A typical moving object detection system installed in a motor vehicle transmits a radar wave in front of the motor vehicle, and receives echoes from moving objects in front of the motor vehicle; these echoes are generated based on the radar wave. The mobile object detection system detects the moving objects based on the received echoes.
Such a moving object detection system using echoes based on an emitted radar wave may detect a plurality of reflection points in a single moving object; the plurality of reflection points have reflected a radar wave transmitted from the moving object detection system. This may cause the moving object detection system to misrecognize the plurality of reflection points as a plurality of different moving objects in front of the motor vehicle. In order to reduce the occurrence of such misrecognition, one technical approach is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2009-186276.
The technical approach is designed to define a region in front of the vehicle, and select reflection points in the plurality of detected reflection points located within the region; the rate of transient change in the velocity of one of the selected reflection points is substantially identical to that of transient change in the velocity of the other thereof.
The technical approach is also designed to merge the selected reflection points with each other and recognize the combined reflection points as detected results from a single moving object.